Originally I had played the 2011 version for Xbox 360 and that is what most of my review will be about.

At a core gameplay level, Catherine has a very complex puzzling system with actual stakes. The act of physically manipulating the level map while avoiding obstacles is very fun, and at times reasonably challenging! It'll make you feel like an absolute champion having waded through some of the cock and ball torture that is some of these levels.

The mystery of the plot and why things are happening are carefully sprinkled in-between the slower portions of the game that focuses much more on relationship building between your two, or three in this case, girlfriends. Multiple endings encourages you to seek out different options and find out for yourself which path you truly want Vincent, the main character, to take. The small side objectives help build so much tension when you meet other people in your dreams that you may or may not be able to help, only to be punched in the gut later when you've realized you've made irreversible mistakes.

In the original, I completed the game and saw all of the endings where most were thought-provoking at best and pure fan/ship service at worst. It is a very intriguing game and I do like it for the most part, but it's also pissed on with some transphobia that just gets even more amplified in this remake of it.

Most of my review is on the original mainly because most of the puzzles don't change, aside from the inclusion of a 3rd romantic option; Rin. This is the only route I took while playing the remake, because it was new.. and uh, hmmmmmm. Without spoiling, there's some themes going on in here that they fumble completely. I will say it was an easy route to take since it's kind of difficult to get the questions leading that way wrong so I never felt as though I needed to look anything up to get there. But, I don't think I learned really anything from doing this route, nor did it honestly add anything to what was already going on in the plot. It's just kinda there for the sake of being kooky crazy and that's really it. If you're into that fine, but I can just open the trending tabs on Twitter and get the same transphobic jokes on there for the same exact experience.

I did not play any of the other endings in this. Supposedly some were changed or modified in some way for the worse so I probably won't bother. It's a great example of a game made well and made to be fun but if I want to go back to it, I'm more likely to play the original without Rin, and I'd probably recommend that version over this one if anyone asked.